1. Field of the Invention
This invention pertains to protection of roof components from the damaging effects of ultra violet rays from the sun, and, more particularly, a shield device for blocking out ultra violet rays from roof pipe flashing components that are susceptible to ultra violet ray damage.
2. Background
Roofing in general deals with first sealing a structure from moisture and second protecting the sealing material from damage caused by the sun's ultra violet rays. For example, the standard built up roof uses alternating layers of felt paper and tar (bitumen) with a final layer of pea gravel to protect the roofing material from the sun. In addition, the standard composition asphalt shingle has an outer layer of mineral granules to block out UV rays. Other materials such as paint, wood, aluminum, steel, copper, and UV resistant plastic, and rubber are also used for UV protection. However, UV protection has generally been ignored in the design and manufacture of modern pipe flashing that has elastomeric or caulking material as a seal between the flashing and the pipe.
Since the invention of the roof flashing with elastomeric collar, there has been a problem with the elastomeric portion of the flashing becoming brittle, cracking, peeling, and rotting away because of damage caused by the sun's ultra violet rays.
Although there have been many variations and improvements to roof pipe flashing such as Kifer (U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,526,407 and 4,903,997) and Hasty (U.S. Pat. No. 4,864,782), these variations deal with methods of manufacture. Other improvements such as Gustafson (U.S. Pat. No. 3,677,576), Logsdon (U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,010,578 and 4,160,347), and Merrin (U.S. Pat. No. 5,226,263) deal with forming a better watertight seal between the pipe and flashing. Even the collar for venting high efficiency furnaces, Orr (U.S. Pat. No. 5,536,048), which is designed to seal onto PVC pipe with PVC glue, ignores the fact that PVC glue breaks down in the sun.
Recently, plumbing material manufactures such as Oatey and IPS Corporation started marketing a pipe flashing repair collar, known as a rain collar. This collar is the elastomeric portion of their pipe flashing without the base. Placing the rain collar over the damaged pipe flashing makes the repair. In a similar case as pipe flashing, rain collars need protection from the sun.